The capitulation of the English Government was assured in the recantations of its greatest men. Ex-premier Herbert H. Asquith spoke first: “I myself,” he declared, “as I believe many others, no longer regard the woman suffrage question from the standpoint we occupied before the war.... I have said that women should work out their own salvation. They have done it. The woman’s cause in England now presents an unanswerable case.” Mr. Lloyd George agreed: “The place of woman,” he said, “is altered for good and all. It would be an outrage not to give her the vote. The further parliamentary action now involved may be regarded as a formality.” General French, former commander of the British armies, the brother of Mrs. Despard and of Mrs. Harley who died at the front, crossed the Channel to announce his conversion to the woman’s cause through “the heroism, the endurance and the organising ability of the women on the battlefields of France and Belgium.” The press of the country burst into print with a new confession of faith. The _Observer_ declared: “In the past we have opposed the claim on one ground and one ground alone—namely, that woman by the fact of her sex was debarred from bearing a share in national defence. We were wrong.” The _Daily Mail_: “The old argument against giving women the franchise was that they were useless in war. But we have found out that we could not carry on the war without them.” The _Evening News_: “In the home woman has long been a partner—not always in name, perhaps, but generally in practice. Now she is a partner in our national effort. And if she demands a partner’s voice in the concerns of the firm, who shall say her Nay?” The _Northern Daily Telegraph_: “The duties of citizenship are fulfilled by women to the uttermost. The continuance of the sex disqualification would be a cruel crime and a blind folly as well.” The _Referee_: “Women have earned a right to be heard in the nation’s councils. The part they have played in winning the war is their victory.” Like this, the cause that yesterday was rejected and most bitterly assailed of men was now championed by the nation. This was a kingdom saying Votes for Women. Field Marshal Pankhurst would never again have to. Her war-time strategy had won. When Mr. Asquith rose in the House of Commons himself to move the woman’s suffrage resolution, it had ceased to be a “controversial” question. The measure was passed by an overwhelming majority. RECORD YEAR FOR SUFFRAGE CAUSE